In the past pallet making devices have been extremely complicated and expensive machines to manufacture. The stringers are usually manually placed in horizontal position on an assembling platform and the deck boards for one side of the pallet are placed in the desired position on top of the stringers. Those deck boards are then nailed to that side of the stringers and the partially assembled pallet unit is then turned over and conveyed to a second location where the process is repeated for the deck boards on the opposite side of the stringers.
Also U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,466, issued Oct. 29, 1974 to Narita, et al, discloses an upstanding track-mounted jig onto which the stringers and deck boards are manually loaded and the jig is then manually moved on its track (while on edge in upstanding position) into a nailing machine which simultaneously nails all the deck boards to all of the stringers, and thereafter the jig with the completed pallet is moved on the track back into a transfer position from which it is transferred onto a stack of completed pallets and the jig is then manually moved back into loading position and the process repeated.
None of the prior art known to the present inventor includes any pallet maker which automatically feeds and then nails the top and bottom boards to the stringers without requiring the partially assembled pallet to be turned over to complete the operation. This obviously permits the manufacturing operation to be carried out much more rapidly and the output of the machine to be greatly increased while keeping the cost of the machine to a minimum.